1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for testing mentation of humans, and a mentation test apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to a highly reproducible and reliable mentation test method that is able to sensitively test human mentation without being affected by intelligence, educational carrier and the effects of repeated learning, and a mentation test apparatus.
2. Description of the Background Art
A mentation test method called TMT (Trail-Making-Test) has been used for finding diseases such as cerebrovascular disorder, schizophrenia and dementia. In this method, test subjects are given a task to sequentially line the figures of 1 to 25 randomly distributed on a sheet of A4 paper within a period as short as possible in a manner similar to one stroke drawing. While the time required for a test subject to complete the task, or to gain a score, is recognized to be affected by the intelligence quotient of the subject as well as by aging to some extent, there are different opinions on the effect of the school carrier.
Since the task can be achieved within a short period of time by simultaneously proceeding two sorts of tasks of search of a target and memory of locations of letters and figures other than the target in the TMT method, higher concurrent processing ability between recognition and retention of information (memory), or higher processing ability of the working memory, results in better results.
However, many other functions such as flexibility of mentation, attention span (fatigue), visual search ability and motor ability are required besides the working memory for achieving the task of the TMT method. Accordingly, lower performance of the aged person is conjectured as a result of age-related changes of these factors above.
However, it is impossible in the currently available TMT method to analyze what factors have affected to what extent on the decrease of the score, thereby making it impossible to assess the working memory ability of aged persons and dementia patients.